Finance Minister Arun JaitleyUnion Finance Minister and member of the Cabinet Committee on Security, Arun Jaitley, on Wednesday said the airstrikes carried out against the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) camp on Pakistan was action that Indians could “only imagine all these years but never achieve”.
Speaking at an event organised by the Ministry of Water Resources in the national capital, Jaitley said, “When Osama Bin Laden was killed by the forces of the US Navy Seals in Pakistan, we could only watch in frustration and with helplessness. It was the stuff of our imagination all these years. But yesterday we finally achieved what we could only imagine.” FOLLOW India-Pakistan LIVE News Updates
He added that the country was “rediscovering its enthusiasm, passion and its true identity” under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “We are finally gaining confidence in who we are as a country,” he said.
READ | If US can kill Osama in Pakistan, why can’t India: Jaitley
Less than a fortnight after the attack on a CRPF convoy in Pulwama, which claimed the lives of 40 personnel, India conducted airstrikes deep inside Pakistan on Tuesday.
Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said in a statement Tuesday, “In an intelligence-led operation in the early hours of today, India struck the biggest training camp of JeM in Balakot. In this operation, a very large number of JeM terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for fidayeen action were eliminated. This facility at Balakot was headed by Maulana Yousuf Azhar alias Ustad Ghouri, (who is) the brother-in-law of Masood Azhar, chief of JeM.”
